Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Viewpoints: Will Florida Be Next To Try Abortion Ban?; Health Insurance Transformation Overdue
The Washington Post: Florida Republicans Are Taking The Middle Road On Abortion. That Should Surprise No One.
Republican leadership in Florida’s legislature appear to be coalescing behind a bill to ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. This might surprise those who expect Republicans will be off to the races to ban all abortions if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade this year, as most court watchers expect. In reality, the Florida bill shows how much public opinion will shape the contours of abortion law in the foreseeable future. (Henry Olsen, 2/8)
Chicago Tribune: Health Insurance, Not Health Care, Needs Reform
A family member became seriously ill last year. After some initial tests, a malignancy was diagnosed. Surgery was scheduled, followed by chemotherapy. Everything proceeded mostly as planned, with no medical hiccups. We are both well-educated, with backgrounds in medicine, health economics and risk analysis, which should have prepared us to maneuver the requirements of our health insurance provider and ensure that copays and pre-authorizations were handled as necessary. We were gravely mistaken. (Sheldon H. Jacobson, 2/8)
Modern Healthcare: Dueling Opinions: What’s Challenging The Physician Workforce?
There’s no question the U.S. has superb healthcare if it’s defined by the number of excellent doctors. The problem is there’s a severe maldistribution. We don’t have a lot of doctors in the rural communities, which has been true for a long, long time. But what the pandemic brought forth was we’re also short of a lot of doctors even in heavily populated areas, mostly the inner city. (Dr. David Battinelli and Dr. Alison Whelan, 2/8)
Kansas Reflector: Legislature Can Help Kansas Lead Nation In Improving Diabetics’ Health
Kansas may not have a diabetes “problem.” That does not mean our state can’t lead the nation in devising a means to address this critical health care issue. Diabetes comes in two flavors, Type 1, which typically affects kids, and Type 2, which tends to afflict the overweight. Some 11.2% of Kansas residents have some form of diabetes, better than West Virginia (15.7%) but not as good as Colorado (7.5%). What causes the difference? Activity. People who exercise regularly weigh less: Relatively sedentary West Virginians, thus, have twice the incidence of active Coloradans. (Andy Obermueller, 2/8)
Kansas City Star: Rural Kansas Needs Legislature To Expand KanCare Medicaid
As elected officials sit comfortably in their marble halls playing politics, Kansans are languishing. Kansas is one of the last holdouts forgoing Medicaid expansion, but expansion is nonnegotiable. It is a matter of life or death. The power to completely change the lives of approximately 150,000 Kansans rests solely in the power of elected officials. (Sarah Graham, 2/9)
Stat: Lander's Resignation Over Workplace Bullying: Tip Of The Iceberg
When Eric Lander resigned as the White House’s top science adviser on Monday, he wrote to President Biden that he was “devastated” to realize how much his bullying behavior hurt his colleagues. News of a bully resigning is a rare outcome in the U.S., where workplace bullying is not illegal. Even so, the recovery has just begun for traumatized staffers. The fallout is just one snapshot of a national problem. Workplace bullying, a form of psychological violence, is a pervasive public health issue. A 2021 study from the non-profit Workplace Bullying Institute showed that 30% of American workers surveyed during the pandemic reported experiencing bullying at work. That’s about 50 million Americans. (Pauline Chiou and Cherie Lynn Ramirez, 2/8)
Stat: PDUFA VII Can Catalyze 'Lightspeed' Vaccine And Drug Development
I’ve had a front-row seat watching how the Covid-19 pandemic has transformed the stately process of drug development into a far more nimble one. It’s a transition the pharmaceutical industry and the FDA must pay attention to. It took just 17 months from the time Covid-19 was declared a global pandemic for Pfizer, the company I work for, and our partner BioNTech to develop and receive full approval from the FDA for Comirnaty, the first Covid-19 vaccine to reach that goal. On a similarly accelerated path, Pfizer designed, developed, and recently received FDA emergency use authorization for Paxlovid, an oral antiviral treatment for Covid-19. (Rod MacKenzie, 2/9)
